Ashenden

A beautifully atmospheric debut about 240 years in the life of an English country house, "this book is a sparkling jewel: full of fascinating detail, high drama, and sly wit" (Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire).

THE HOUSE CONTAINS TIME. ITS WALLS HOLD STORIES. . . .

When brother and sister Charlie and Ros discover that they have inherited Ashenden, the beautiful eighteenth-century English country house steeped in their family history, they face an important decision: Do they try to keep it or do they sell it?

In a beguiling narrative spanning two and a half centuries, we meet those who have built the house, lived in it, loved it, and those who would subvert it to their own ends. The walls of Ashenden echo with the lives of the architect who directs the building of the house in 1775, the wealthy Henderson family in their heyday, the maid who is tempted to solve her problems by stealing a trinket, the Jazz Age speculator who hosts a fabulous treasure hunt, the prisoners held there during World War II, and the young couple who lovingly restore it in the 1950s.

With upstairs and downstairs storylines intertwining to form a rich tapestry, Ashenden is an evocative portrait of a house that is a character as compelling as the people who inhabit it.